


Things We Lost in the Fire

by BeLiEVeRiNrAnDOmCApiTaliZatiOn



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Bunker Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2013-08-17
Packaged: 2017-12-23 19:02:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/929977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeLiEVeRiNrAnDOmCApiTaliZatiOn/pseuds/BeLiEVeRiNrAnDOmCApiTaliZatiOn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And Dean knows how Cas feels and he wants so badly to do that, to be selfish just this once and take the only good thing that might come out of this mess, to lean forward just the scantest inch and kiss Cas and they could just figure everything out in the morning, figure out how to fit their fucked-up-edness together in a way that worked and then they could make everything right. Wanted so bad it felt like he was being burned alive with greed and he adjusted his grip on Cas’s tie. Then he said, “No, Cas. We can’t be selfish, not on this one.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things We Lost in the Fire

Okay, so he’ll admit it, Dean’s avoiding Cas.

It’s not like he meant for it to happen. He didn’t even really notice how he ducked out so smoothly every time the ex-angel entered the same room as him in the bunker until he had nearly run head-on into Kevin while trying to slip away from Cas. Kevin had dropped all his books and, scrambling for an apology, Dean couldn’t find an excuse for why he was going that way except that it was the opposite direction from Castiel.

At first he told himself that it was simply that he didn’t want the other man to have some big kind of breakdown on him about casting all the angels out from Heaven or whatever, because, really, what do you say to a former angel about how his family has been dispelled from Heaven? I told you so?

All-in-all though, the guy didn’t seem to be taking it too badly. Of course, he drunk himself stupid almost every night, but no big breakdown had ensued yet. Dean guessed he was dealing with it the Winchester way – alcohol and self-loathing.

But the other possible reasons for his avoidance so deeply disturbed him that he shoved them all away and decided that it was most definitely his deathly fear of chick flick moments.

Of course, other people noticed. Surprisingly, Crowley was the first to catch on, sidling up to Dean in the kitchen and whispering, “What’s up with you and Mr. Wingless? Had a falling out? You shouldn’t be mad at him for the whole angel fiasco, Winchester, he’s already taking it out on himself. He needs a friend and some support, you moron.” It was really the oddest talk from Crowley, seeing as how it was spoken in such an endearing tone that it made Dean uncomfortable.

Then Sam stepped in with his whole girly attitude about _communication_.

“Just talk to him, Dean!” He said over a bite out at the nearest burger joint. “Christ, you’re ducking around the bunker like the plague’s after you!”

Dean just noisily sipped his coke and avoided his brother’s disapproving glare.

Then Kevin got all up in Dean’s grill about the whole thing, mainly because they usually collided when the hunter was trying to make a getaway and there had been a couple very close calls that almost landed with precious record books colliding with the floor.

Then there was Cas. Then there was Cas looking at him sadly whenever Dean caught his eye. Then there was Cas making soft sounds in the room next to his. Then there was Cas padding over to his door and tapping softly, murmuring quiet “Dean?”s while the hunter pretended to be asleep. Then there was Cas trying to wake up as early as him so they’d be the only two in the kitchen. Then there was Cas suggesting Dean teach him how to drive the Impala, just the two of them. Then there was Cas, just being so damn Cas-like that it drove Dean absolutely bonkers and he fled whenever he caught sight of that torn-up trenchcoat.

Then there was Cas getting plastered and cornering Dean in the kitchen, backing him up against the cabinets and murmuring his name in that same soft, sad way.

“ _Dean_.”

“Uh, hey,” Dean said. “Hey Cas, buddy. Um, you need to go over that personal-space talk again?”

Cas still didn’t move, keeping Dean there with a firm hand around his upper arm.

“Dean,” He said again. “You’re avoiding me.”

He vehemently shook his head. “What’re you talking about? No, I’m not.”

Cas sighed, air coming from somewhere deep inside of him. He swayed slightly and lowered his head, staring at a point on the cabinets over the hunter’s right shoulder. “What happened, Dean?” he asked, slurred. “What happened to us?”

Shame welled up in him and Dean deflated, head lowering as well to stare at the delicate hairs the other man had missed shaving that morning.

“I don’t know, Cas.”

That did nothing to aide Cas’s distress and he gripped Dean more tightly. “Can we just start over? Start where we were before everything went wrong?”

_Can we start on that balmy summer night with Ellen, Jo, Bobby, and Sam, eating barbeque on Bobby’s back porch? Can we start at the moment when you brushed my leg with yours and kept it there? Can we start with the movement of your hand when it cautiously took mine and we ate burgers with only one hand so we could entwine our fingers? Can we start with the look in your eyes when I kissed your cheek and said goodnight on the staircase? Can we start there, when I thought there could’ve been something between us, before things got all fucked up? Can we start there?_

“Look, Cas,” Dean says, and Cas is getting in closer, curling fingers in the hunter’s shirtsleeve. Uncertain, Dean slips his hand around the ex-angel’s tie, but he doesn’t know if he’s pulling him closer or pushing him away yet. Their thighs are touching and it makes it hard for him to speak. “Cas, those things that happened, we can’t erase them.”

There’s a shattered look in the other man’s eyes. Dean surges forward.

“You betrayed us – betrayed me. You broke my trust and, I mean … y-you almost killed me, Cas. You almost killed me, then you disappeared and every time I wanted to ask you to stay, you were off again before I could even get the words out. Your … rashness. Yeah, I think that’s the word. Your rashness could’ve cost people their lives. Hell, it might’ve! We don’t know what’s happening with the other angels and we don’t know how to fix this mess and we can’t, me and you, we can’t just –“ He’s running out of words. “Cas, we can’t just forget about it all. No matter how hard we might want to, we can’t. That’s selfish.”

Cas sways, almost dangerously, but rights himself again. “ s’not fair,” he slurs. “S’not fair. We’ve given so much, Dean, can’t we take just one thing for ourselves?”

And Dean knows how Cas feels and he wants so badly to do that, to be selfish just this once and take the only good thing that might come out of this mess, to lean forward just the scantest inch and kiss Cas and they could just figure everything out in the morning, figure out how to fit their fucked-up-edness together in a way that worked and then they could make everything right. Wanted so bad it felt like he was being burned alive with greed and he adjusted his grip on Cas’s tie.

Then he said, “No, Cas. We can’t be selfish, not on this one.”

And, God, his angel looks so broken.

“ _Dean_.”

“No, Cas. Things are different now. We can’t pretend like we haven’t hurt each other. We can’t pretend like there’s nothing wrong. We can’t pretend like it’s God-fucking-knows how many years ago and Bobby and Jo and Ellen aren’t dead and you’re still an angel and Sam isn’t sick and we don’t have a flock of ex-angels to herd and a whole damn world to fix because … because we just fucking _can’t_ , Cas!”

The other man retreats, pulling his hand from Dean’s arm and tucking it awkwardly into his pocket. He looks down and his face burns dark red and hurt.

“Oh.”

Dean looks away, stomach churning.

“I’m sorry, Dean.”

 _It doesn’t matter if you’re sorry._ He doesn’t say it because it’s crueler than he can be right now. _What matters is you tried to kill me. What matters is you left. What matters is … is that I gave you everything and_ this _is how you repay me._

The thought aches in the same place in his heart that had fluttered when Cas had first brushed their fingers together over two years ago, leaving a buzzing throughout Dean's whole arm as he nearly choked on his burger on Bobby's back porch. The thought aches in the same place his heart had pounded when Cas had wrenched his wristbones apart and forced him to his knees. 

Cas leaves the kitchen quickly, but Dean can still smell him in the air. There’s the musk of him left on his clothing and he feels an animalistic urge to scream and rip his shirt off, to take a match and a dagger to the mark Cas had left on his body so long ago, and deface it with words like _betrayal_ and _hatred_. He wants to take every scrap of the ex-angel and erase it from his life, fill Cas’s room with junk and burn the scrap of the torn trenchcoat that he had kept. He wants to forget that he was ever maybe-in-love with an angel because that angel had _left_ and had _hurt him_ and he now realized that _all the angel had ever done was leave and hurt him_.

Dean drinks two bottles of whiskey and spends the night on the hard linoleum with the simultaneous memory of Cas’s lips on his cheek and Cas’s fist on his face.

**Author's Note:**

> With so many people jumping the gun and foreseeing Dean and Cas being all domestic at the bunker, I wanted to do a piece about Dean dealing with Cas's betrayal and attempted murder. I'm still not sure if I entirely like the way it came out, so consider this a draft and expect changes and tweaking.
> 
> Ta for reading!  
> -  
> [Dodger]


End file.
